Did you try with revives + skeletons + thorns passive? Thorns comes out fast. As you run through, everything melts.
Seems like supplementing with a direct single target attack for gobs and bosses with hack could work, the only issue being taking up a slot for a primarily situational scenario.
I still think Inarius can be a lot stronger than LoN due to its ridiculously OP bonus. You don't get a few of the nice utility bonuses, like 30%Dr from the golem pants, but I also don't think their usefulness trumps the damage bonus from inarius.
Per that Cheng quote, it sure would be nice if they had worded it accurately. The in-game wording is almost the opposite of what he said there. The 800% bonus from 6p invoker is worded properly, and hack should reflect the same. (100% thorns damage to the first enemy hit)
I apologize if my post wasn't clear - the only way you would get x17 thorns damage are when all 17 pets get hit, Which does happen when an enemy attacks with an AoE and they all have him swarmed. That's why I mentioned the Mallet lord - I've seen it happen a bunch of times and with his huge attack it makes it really easy to notice and pretty funny.
I'd add:
1) Huge amount of pets. More = better
2) As close-range minions as possible. Mages for example will not be very useful as they are mosly in the second line.
3) avoid stun, freeze, blind, immobilize, as enemies need to be able to attack in order to receive damage
4) Sucks at goblins. Unless we can find a skill which works well with Hack, you just have no means of damaging them effectively.
Great info @Angry_Roleplayer, but I am wondering how you determined there is no necro attack that can apply thorns efficiently? Clearly it will need to be a direct attack, but it seems to me with the possibility of getting into the billions of thorns damage through Jairo, there could be something useful even if only for single target DPS, no?
Yes. Thorns is massive damage when pets get hit. The 200% thorns on pets passive is a huge buff.
Especially since there are 17 minions standing there(10 revive, 7 skellies). If a big attack hits, thorns gets applied x17
@Dragonhaze97
Hack definitely does not work with pets, but it most likely works with some direct attacks from the necromancer himself. If we can find a direct damage attack that fits well within a pets build that can proc Hack damage, that will be cool.
I am going to follow this thread for a while - keep experimenting and see if you find something that seems to work well!
Hack is the issue. If you use a skill with a high proc coefficient, Hack will probably work. It still relies on procs as far as I understand.
I've been playing around with a thorns pet build and I can confirm I don't see any difference with Hack, at least not through the pets.
However, having seen your results with hack not working, I'd recommend swapping out skeleton mages for Revives and to also use skeletons. That makes 17 targets applying thorns - any monsters with any type of AoE(basically every elite) will be attacking as many as 17(19 with golem + self) targets simultaneously, equaling 17x your thorns damage with the additional 200% bonus from the passive. It's really fun to see a mallet lord rift guardian one shot himself because he just got hit by 100mil thorns x 17 x 200%
Don't use stun or freeze - chill/slow are ok but you want enemies to be attacking your minions, so freezing, stunning, or turning them into chickens with the enchantress is detrimental.
This is probably the most viable necro thorns build for now, until they release a set for a real thorns build in the next season, which they will definitely be doing considering we already have spear + passive. It's really fun, and there is a lot less "sit and wait" than you might think, though you do have to wait for an attack vs rift guardians or bosses.
using ring of royal grandeur(or not if going LoN - inarius is probably better though) + mask of scarlet death will give your revives up to 1500% MORE thorns and can take this build over the top, but it also means you need to be casting revive much more frequently to keep 10 minions up(though no mana cost, the only cost is your management time)
10 stacks of Jairo is very modest - I have seen my thorns sheet dmg north of 1mil without using Eternal Torment and casting decrep on a few packs, and my chip is only at lvl 25 currently. Sheet dmg on thorns with 0 stacks is at about 100k currently.
This build also gives you a lot of flexibility in skills. The only real requirement is decrep, revive, skeletons(much easier to get them focused on a single target quickly than revives), and the thorns passive. If going inarius vs LoN, obv bone armor is required too.
Handling resource generation is wide open - I use devouring aura, along with fueled by death + speed passive on decrep which gives me acceptable farming rate without blood rush. I like land of the dead for unlimited 10 stack revives, but it's not at all needed without mask of scarlet death. Skeleton mages could be yet another source of thorns. you can choose to use golem or not, etc.
0
Did you try with revives + skeletons + thorns passive? Thorns comes out fast. As you run through, everything melts.
Seems like supplementing with a direct single target attack for gobs and bosses with hack could work, the only issue being taking up a slot for a primarily situational scenario.
I still think Inarius can be a lot stronger than LoN due to its ridiculously OP bonus. You don't get a few of the nice utility bonuses, like 30%Dr from the golem pants, but I also don't think their usefulness trumps the damage bonus from inarius.
Per that Cheng quote, it sure would be nice if they had worded it accurately. The in-game wording is almost the opposite of what he said there. The 800% bonus from 6p invoker is worded properly, and hack should reflect the same. (100% thorns damage to the first enemy hit)
0
I apologize if my post wasn't clear - the only way you would get x17 thorns damage are when all 17 pets get hit, Which does happen when an enemy attacks with an AoE and they all have him swarmed. That's why I mentioned the Mallet lord - I've seen it happen a bunch of times and with his huge attack it makes it really easy to notice and pretty funny.
I'd add:
1) Huge amount of pets. More = better
2) As close-range minions as possible. Mages for example will not be very useful as they are mosly in the second line.
3) avoid stun, freeze, blind, immobilize, as enemies need to be able to attack in order to receive damage
4) Sucks at goblins. Unless we can find a skill which works well with Hack, you just have no means of damaging them effectively.
Great info @Angry_Roleplayer, but I am wondering how you determined there is no necro attack that can apply thorns efficiently? Clearly it will need to be a direct attack, but it seems to me with the possibility of getting into the billions of thorns damage through Jairo, there could be something useful even if only for single target DPS, no?
0
@ch1zra
Yes. Thorns is massive damage when pets get hit. The 200% thorns on pets passive is a huge buff.
Especially since there are 17 minions standing there(10 revive, 7 skellies). If a big attack hits, thorns gets applied x17
@Dragonhaze97
Hack definitely does not work with pets, but it most likely works with some direct attacks from the necromancer himself. If we can find a direct damage attack that fits well within a pets build that can proc Hack damage, that will be cool.
I am going to follow this thread for a while - keep experimenting and see if you find something that seems to work well!
0
Hack is the issue. If you use a skill with a high proc coefficient, Hack will probably work. It still relies on procs as far as I understand.
I've been playing around with a thorns pet build and I can confirm I don't see any difference with Hack, at least not through the pets.
However, having seen your results with hack not working, I'd recommend swapping out skeleton mages for Revives and to also use skeletons. That makes 17 targets applying thorns - any monsters with any type of AoE(basically every elite) will be attacking as many as 17(19 with golem + self) targets simultaneously, equaling 17x your thorns damage with the additional 200% bonus from the passive. It's really fun to see a mallet lord rift guardian one shot himself because he just got hit by 100mil thorns x 17 x 200%
Don't use stun or freeze - chill/slow are ok but you want enemies to be attacking your minions, so freezing, stunning, or turning them into chickens with the enchantress is detrimental.
This is probably the most viable necro thorns build for now, until they release a set for a real thorns build in the next season, which they will definitely be doing considering we already have spear + passive. It's really fun, and there is a lot less "sit and wait" than you might think, though you do have to wait for an attack vs rift guardians or bosses.
using ring of royal grandeur(or not if going LoN - inarius is probably better though) + mask of scarlet death will give your revives up to 1500% MORE thorns and can take this build over the top, but it also means you need to be casting revive much more frequently to keep 10 minions up(though no mana cost, the only cost is your management time)
10 stacks of Jairo is very modest - I have seen my thorns sheet dmg north of 1mil without using Eternal Torment and casting decrep on a few packs, and my chip is only at lvl 25 currently. Sheet dmg on thorns with 0 stacks is at about 100k currently.
This build also gives you a lot of flexibility in skills. The only real requirement is decrep, revive, skeletons(much easier to get them focused on a single target quickly than revives), and the thorns passive. If going inarius vs LoN, obv bone armor is required too.
Handling resource generation is wide open - I use devouring aura, along with fueled by death + speed passive on decrep which gives me acceptable farming rate without blood rush. I like land of the dead for unlimited 10 stack revives, but it's not at all needed without mask of scarlet death. Skeleton mages could be yet another source of thorns. you can choose to use golem or not, etc.